Ahmed White is professor of law and Nicholas Rosenbaum Professor of Law Chair at the University of Colorado–Boulder. He is the author of Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers(UC Press, 2022).
The 1937 Little Steel strike is often dismissed as a failure and relegated to a footnote. But it was a courageous organizing effort and a crucial moment in US labor history — revealing the limits of the New Deal order and the deepest dynamics of capitalism.
The Industrial Workers of the World pioneered a radical unionism that built a small but incredibly dedicated group of unionists and union supporters — which is why American capitalists and politicians quickly decided they needed to stop the union.
The first Red Scare that began a century ago with the Palmer Raids wasn’t rooted in irrational hysteria. The government agencies that carried out the raids had an unambiguous goal: to destroy the radical left in the United States.
Eighty years ago, striking workers in Chicago were shot down by police. It transformed the course of labor rights in the US.